Her voice soothing, Cathy quickly said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s here, I saw it on the road and picked it up.’ Getting to her feet she went to a table nearby and picked up the large black shoulder bag which she had found on the road beside her car. ‘Here it is, you see?’
‘Oh, thank you.’ In her relief Sophie almost sobbed as she took it. Her hands shook as she unzipped it and pulled out the little sheaf of photographs she had brought with her to show her sister. Hunting through them, she found the photo of their mother in her wedding-dress and held it out. ‘Do you recognize this?’
Frowning, startled, Cathy Brougham took it. ‘What a strange picture! It looks like a photo of a ghost.’ She shivered as if a ghost had in fact walked over her grave.
‘It’s a photocopy of a photograph; the photo was blown up to make it clearer.’
It was far from clear, thought Cathy. ‘But what is it?’ She found the strange black and white composition disturbing; she couldn’t stop staring, though, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Slowly she turned her head and stared into a gilt-framed Venetian eighteenth-century mirror hanging on the wall across the room. She walked over there to look closer, held the photograph up beside her own reflection, and couldn’t breathe properly. It could have been a picture of her, now; yet it was clearly an old photograph, more a negative in ghostly black and white, the clothes old-fashioned, a peasant look to them that made them foreign, and yet that face was so familiar, she had seen it in her mirror a million times.
‘What is this?’ she whispered. ‘Who is it?’
Sophie w
as breathless with excitement and relief because she could see that her sister had seen the resemblance, was shaken by it. ‘You do recognize it, don’t you?’
Cathy swallowed. ‘No!’ she lied. It was some trick, it had to be. Had someone taken a picture of her and stuck it on the body of someone else? Angrily she broke out, ‘Who are you?’
‘I am Sophie, Sophie Narodni.’
‘Narodni?’ The way she repeated it told Sophie that the name meant nothing to her. ‘That’s East European, isn’t it? – where do you come from?’
‘I am Czech,’ Sophie said in her own language, hoping for some reaction, but Cathy looked blank, so she repeated it in English. ‘I am Czech.’
‘Oh. Czech.’ Cathy frowned. ‘What are you doing in England?’
‘I am here to see you, Anya.’
A flush of anger ran up Cathy’s face. ‘Why do you keep calling me that? My name is Cathy, Cathy Brougham. I was Cathy Gowrie, but I have never been called Anya.’ But she looked again at the photocopied face of their mother, bewilderment in her eyes. ‘Who is this, anyway? It isn’t me, although it looks like me. Who is it?’
‘Our mother.’
Cathy Brougham felt as if she had been kicked in the stomach. She gave a shaken gasp. ‘What? What are you talking about?’ She almost ran over to a table and picked up a photograph in an ornate silver art nouveau frame, held it out to Sophie. ‘This is me, with my mother. She doesn’t look anything like this!’ and she held out the photocopied photo too so that the faces were side by side.
Sophie took it eagerly and looked at the dark-haired little girl in a cream straw bonnet and embroidered frock, unsmilingly leaning against a thin, pale woman who had a tight, possessive arm around her shoulders. So that was Mrs Gowrie? She looked neurotic, or was she simply ill?
It must have been taken shortly after they left for America; the child was the same age as the photo of Anya she had brought with her. Sophie hunted among her pile of photographs, found it and held it out.
Cathy was oddly reluctant to take it; she felt a shiver of premonition, her skin icy, and hung back, her hands by her side. She had never been prone to belief in the supernatural, in second sight or having her fortune read, she didn’t believe in all that stuff, yet suddenly she was afraid, although she didn’t even know what it was that frightened her, only that, although her rational mind told her that this was all nonsense, she was afraid it might be true. No. No. Sophie Narodni must be trying to play some confidence trick on her. Hoping to get money out of her?
Yet she seemed genuine enough. Indeed her face was disturbingly convincing. That was real emotion in those blue eyes. She’s probably crazy, Cathy thought. She has to be. It isn’t true, any of it, but she believes it, so she must be mad.
‘Take it, Anya, look at yourself,’ Sophie said gently, pushing the photo into her hands.
Cathy took one look then sat down on the floor again, her knees giving under her, her eyes wide and dark with shock as she took in the identical faces. Both herself. She couldn’t deny it, but there had to be some other explanation, she just had to find it, and find it she would. She wasn’t being taken in by some photographic trick.
She looked angrily at Sophie Narodni. ‘Where did you get this picture of me? I’m not stupid, you know. I see how you played this trick – you got hold of newspaper photographs, and had them photocopied then re-photographed, very enlarged. It’s obvious how you did it. The press are always printing old photos from our family albums, and all my life I can remember posing for the press photographers too. This is a photo of me taken when we first came back to the States.’ But her eyes went back to the photograph of the young woman in a strange, old-fashioned wedding-dress, and she frowned, unable to explain that one.
Sophie saw her glance at it and frown; and gently said, ‘No, Anya, that is not you – it is our mother.’ Her eyes were full of sympathy and anxiety. She had expected disbelief but she had not understood quite how much of a shock it would be for her sister. Should she have come here? Should she have told her?
But I had to – I promised Mamma I would find Anya and bring her home. I just hadn’t realized what it would mean for Anya. She doesn’t want a sister, she has had a whole life of which I have no share. I have thought of her all my life, I have loved her, even when I believed her dead – but Anya has not even known I existed, and can I blame her if she hates me for what I am doing?
‘This is my mother.’ Cathy held out the silver-framed photo in a shaking hand. Sophie looked at it and sighed.
‘That is Mrs Gowrie. She may have been your mother for as long as you can remember, but she isn’t your real mother, and Mr Gowrie isn’t your real father.’
Cathy felt a stab of shock and pain. Her voice hoarse, she said, ‘Stop telling these lies! I don’t want to hear any more!’
‘It’s the truth. They adopted you, when you were two years old, just after this photo of you was taken for our mother. I was born a few weeks after you were taken away to America. My mother lied to me, told me you were dead, I used to be taken to visit your grave, I had no idea you were still alive until a couple of months ago when I was coming to the States and my mother told me the truth. She has leukaemia – she’s afraid she’ll die without ever seeing you again, and that nobody will ever know you’re still alive.’